Transform A Life

“The choice between love and fear is made every moment in our hearts and minds. That is where the peace process begins. Without peace within, peace in the world is an empty wish.” – Paul Ferrini

I truly believe that as one person changes, the world changes. And that's why I believe so strongly in the work being done by Living Yoga, a Portland, OR, nonprofit that bring yoga to youth and adults in prison and alcohol and drug treatment centers.

I first found out about Living Yoga last year when a student of mine was participating in their Yogathon. I thought it was a great idea. I know firsthand how much this practice has changed my life, I could only imagine how powerful it could be to receive the gifts of yoga when faced with the challenge of addiction, or even incarceration. 

And then around the fall I came across this video of one of Living Yoga's students. I couldn't control the tears. There's something about yoga. It doesn't matter who you are or what you have done. Yoga will connect you to your heart. It will break you open. Wide open. Yoga brings us back to our goodness, and gives us a chance to live from a place of love and integrity. Just as the quote above says, the peace process begins on the inside. Yoga helps us to begin to negotiate that peace. And, it gives us the tools to take the peace outside and into the world. Inner peace, outer action.

I'm so lucky to work at Living Yoga now. I feel even luckier that part of my job is helping to raise money for such a worthy organization. One that invests its resources in the human spirit and that works to help reveal the essential goodness of all beings. 

In the short time I have been there I have been to several of the classes. All of them have a common theme--reminding people they always have a choice. That freedom comes from the inside. And, no matter what, you can find peace and space in every moment by returning to your breath. These are powerful ideas for all of us, but even more so I think for those who are battling addictions and who are in prison.

This year I am participating in the 4th Annual Yogathon. For six weeks I am challenging myself to meditate every day. I'll be focusing on a metta meditation, which is sending loving kindness out to all beings everywhere. And, I'll also be committing to deepen my yoga practice too. As I grow and change with this process I will also be raising money to make sure others can experience the power of this practice too. Please support me in reaching my goal of $1008 by donating to my yogathon challenge.

In gratitude,

Michael

And So It Begins!

I just love teaching beginners. There is something powerful about being with someone as they take their first few steps and breaths into this healing practice. I wrote down some notes that I have been using as part of my five week series with Brand New Beginners, and also my Yoga 102 classes. They are not original material, in fact most if not all, is synthesized from what I have learned studying from the awesome books and teachings of Pema Chodron, and also from Donna Farhi. Some of the material is also based on my reflections from practice. With that being said, please enjoy these thoughts and see how they may even inform your practice no matter how long you have been on your yoga journey!

How to begin practice


I believe that Yoga is about befriending what is. As Pema says you learn to welcome the present moment in as if you had invited it in. It’s all you ever have so you might as well work with it rather than fight it, reject it, or wish it to be something other than it is right now. This really helps to ensure that you practice more with compassion and acceptance rather than aggression.

How do you do this?

You begin by noticing what is--shifting from thinking to awareness, from external to internal. You start with breath and from there ride the wave of the breath more deeply into your body.


You then work on feeling what is- really allowing yourself to feel into the body, letting sensation after sensation reveal itself to you. Noticing where tension is, where resistance and clinging are. Notice where is there space and openness too.


You practice allowing what is. Let the process of revelation continue without suppressing, denying, hiding, etc..Letting things be rather than letting things go. When you try to let go of tension, when you try to let go of thoughts, very often their grip on you tightens. It's like "don't think about an elephant", and that's all you can do. When you practice just letting things be and continuing to just breathe anyway, then something quite profound can happen. You simply join with breath to create space and ventilation around tightness, clinging, and stale stuck energy in the body.

This is the practice of aligning with the flow of life. Abiding with the fluid energy of life. Practice then becomes and opportunity to learn how you can create an optimal channel for vitality and openness to flow through you. Rather than moving and quickly trying to get from point a to b, you can learn to slow things down and notice all the incremental stages and steps in-between a and b. You can practice letting the body wrap itself around the breath--which feels so much different than contorting the body into shapes it's not ready to be in.


This is also an opportunity to practice moving into space/stillness. You can find the natural gaps and space between breaths, and between movements and allow time to stop and sink into the pause. Learning to find this pause is sacred as the pause is a tool you can learn to take with you in the moments you are prone to enter into automatic pilot mode, or into habitual ways of being that do not serve you.


Most important, I think, is to remember that this practice is not about more and more poses, or even deeper expressions of poses. It's not a race nor a competition. It’s about going deeper into life and refining your awareness of and connection to your life force. Rather than poses, it’s about process. It is mindfulness in motion. It is about being here fully and engaging in your world fully.

Enjoy this practice as it will give you so much to enhance your life and relationships!

Heart Fire Practices

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

This is the work. To invite the element of fire to burn through whatever separates us from our deepest source of love. To invoke dissolution or burning of our stories of separation and to ignite the flames connection, compassion and generosity to burn bright.

We open with ritual to connect to the fire of our heart and to open to love.

Meditation on fire element

Heart Breath Ritual

Anne Lamott - "Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining."

I love this quote. It’s a reminder that all we ever need is this moment. We don’t have to go looking anywhere outside ourselves to make a difference in the world. We make a difference simply through our beingness and from expressing our deepest gift of love to the world. We simply show up and live our lives deeply and powerfully in the moment.

It sometimes seems and feels like everyone is waiting for a big moment to shine. But really every moment & every interaction is a perfect opportunity to support you in teaching love, giving love, and opening to love. This means our relationships, our house, our work, our current circumstances exactly as they are. Our task is to simply show up and express our deepest gift to the world, which is the manifestation of love. Your “job in the world may take many different forms, but your real job is to give, express, and open to love in every interaction. Heart Fire is the remembrance of the job you are here to do.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that the only thing required to live a heart centered life is the willingness to do so.

How do we get there?

We start by practicing Ahimsa- which according to Pema Chodron is softening what is rigid in our own hearts. We begin to inquire and notice do we open or close to this person before us, this circumstance, this moment. Life is just a series of moments to learn to love more deeply. As we look into our individual moments our intention, our prayer is not for the circumstance, moment,  or person to change, but for us to change. We use the mantra-- “In order for things to change. I must change.”

What is it that changes?  It’s perception. You are working with your heart/mind consciousness. You’re simply opening to a new spacious place in your heart. According to A Course In Miracles, a miracle is just a shift in perception. You are opening to miracles.

How do we begin to bring forth this energy?

One of the deepest gifts we can give to ourselves and the world is our presence and it’s the foundation of heart centered living. The willingness and ability to reside in present moment time.

How do we do this?

It begins with acceptance of what is. Allowing. Letting be. As Pema Chodron says we begin making friends with what is, befriending the present moment as if we had invited it in--it’s all we ever have so we might as well work with it.

We work with abiding with the fluid energy of life. So much of our suffering comes from wishing things to be different than they are. From distancing ourselves to the flow of life as we reject, cling to, resist, and suppress the expressions of life manifesting in our own experience. All the while life is happening now and we’re not here to experience it. We’re off somewhere else.

This process begins our journey into self compassion and compassion for others. We bring awareness to our story maker--which tends to fuel our habitual response. We greet our thoughts and emotions with understanding, and compassion. Rather than trying to let it go or push it out we just ventilate and give everything space and allow it all to follow the natural flow of life.

There is research that shows that the lifespan of any giving emotion is actually only 1-1.5 minutes and it's our stories that we create about the situation, person, etc.. that keeps adding kerosene to the fire so to speak. So if you can sit with that energy, free from story and just breathe into it--it will eventually pass on through just as all things do. The important thing is to stop feeding it. So when you practice meditation or if anger just arises--you see it, don't push it away, and let yourself feel it. Stay with the emotion, and if you start to notice yourself fueling it with stories just label it "thinking" and just stay with the energy. Pema calls this leaning into the energy. You lean in and give it ventilation with your breath. If that feels like it's not working you lean in and get curious--notice where the energy is in your body--does it have a texture, tone, vibration, color, etc... get to know it. And lastly you lean in and transform. Notice the energy and stay with it, free from story and then take your hands to your heart, breath into your heart and cultivate an attitude of appreciation or gratitude and try to feel it all through your body.

You can learn to begin to stay with these intense energies by practicing with smaller issues. You can pause by engaging in a pausing practice of just taking three deep breaths and noticing all that you can about them, and even noticing the gap and space between the breaths. Reside in the space and pause and notice how the body feels. Do this anytime you feel “hooked” by strong emotions or when you feel like you are about to do something from a place of automatic pilot mode.

This begins to set the stage for us to have compassion for others. From this compassionate abiding we can then do work on forgiving others and releasing them from the stories we have created about them. Knowing full well we are not our stories, neither are they. As we reside with the fluid energy of life within us we tap into it with our interactions with others too.

For more info on working with conflict with others please see my section on Mindful Dialog and also my work on using the Yamas and Niyamas in conflict.

We closed the session with the following forgiveness meditation.

Let me know if you have any questions.

The story of you.

"Once upon a time there was a woman who was swimming across a lake with a rock in her hand. As she was getting close to the middle of the lake she began to sink because of the weight of the rock. She would go down below the water and then pop back up again. As she did this, the people who were watching from the shore were screaming at her to drop the rock. She continued to swim until she could no longer hold herself above the water and even though people were shouting to drop the rock, she wouldn’t do it, and just before she went under one last time, not to come up again, the onlookers heard her say, “I can’t, it’s mine.”
One of the things that I love about yoga is that it supports us in getting clearer about what is us, and what is the story of us. We get to this place by way of making contact with our internal witness. That spacious grounded place within that clearly sees the way things really are--without story.

The story maker within all of us is strong and without clear insight into its nature we can be so deeply enmeshed in our stories that we lead our whole lives in fear, shame, guilt, remorse, delusion, and despair. Usually stories revolve around projecting into past or future our ideas of what should/should not happen to us or others. Good signs you're in story mode are thoughts such as "I really should have said...", "They should really do it this way", "I can't possibly do this",  "They can't get away with this", "I'm not this enough", "They are not this enough", etc..

There are many more concoctions of story manifestations but to some degree or another many of us circulate these variations around in our minds, and like the woman who wouldn't let go, we drown because we hold on so tightly to who we think we are, what we think we need, and what we think we should be doing.

Yoga practice gives us a chance to meet our stories head on, and with compassion greet our stories with understanding. As Byron Katie points out in her book "Loving What Is" it's impossible to drop our stories. Thoughts come from nowhere and return to that same no where. She says rather than trying to let go of our stories our task is to simply meet our stories with understanding and they very often let go of us. Their grip is not so strong and we can then be free and in the present.

When you practice this week meet your stories with understanding and see what happens. Remain open and spacious as stories come up "I can't", "The teacher really should have done this", "I'm not this enough to do this", etc.. See if the grip of your story softens just a bit, and notice who you are and what happens when you are free from the entanglement of your story maker.

I'll leave you with a great practice to support you in this journey. It's an exercise from my book "Heart Fire: Practices To Awaken, Expand, and Engage Your Heart" called "Practice cultivating the witness through listening". Try this exercise, even if you’ve never meditated before. Sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes. 

Let your breathing be calm, so that you don’t have to think about the breath at all. Now take a moment to listen to the sounds around you. Notice that in the instant that you tell your senses to listen, all of your thinking stops momentarily. The idea with this meditation is to gradually lengthen the amount of time that thinking naturally suspends by staying in a state of active listening. In the listening state, we are receptive and open, taking in auditory information through our senses. Almost instantly the mind starts naming the sounds we hear. Start to notice that, and let it go. Say to yourself, “I’m naming again.” And then come back to listening. 


Become even more acutely aware of any sound that enters your perception. Let curiosity be your guide, and stay interested in what arises. Don’t try to figure it out. There isn’t a right way to do this. There is only listening. 

The idea isn’t to stop the flow of thoughts altogether. This isn’t possible. The mind will keep thinking. That is its job. The idea is to become less attached to identifying with those thoughts. And in that process, the witness naturally grows stronger, and more familiar. Just remain in a state of active listening without naming as long as you are comfortable doing so. When you’re 
ready, open your eyes.

Honor The Struggle

"There's a part of every living thing that wants to become itself: the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one. That is spirituality."-

Ellen Bass

I just got done watching this amazing video of Arthur. I hope you can take the time to watch it too. It'll take just about 5 minutes of your life and after watching it three times myself, I can say it's worth it.

Arthur's story reminds me of the yogic concept of Tapas, or discipline on the path of yoga. To me Tapas is the energy required to remain open in our hearts and minds, rather than close down and withdraw from life, when struggle, challenge, limitation, and resistance manifest in our life. Tapas helps us to remain strong in our spiritual practice and cultivate resilience to face our obstacles with courage. 

I believe that opening (courage) and closing (retreating) are like seeds we can sow in our psyche. We choose moment to moment what we water and therefore what we grow in every choice we make. We make these choices in little decisions, and it's the little decisions that reinforce our habitual responses that fuel our actions when larger struggles and challenges arise in our lives.

For many, the choice to become complacent, bitter, sour, or down right resentful in the face of life's struggles is all too often a default and habitual response--because it's a seed we have watered along our path many times. Think of these little moments such as the times when you know you want to meditate and yet you get home and you reach for the beer instead. You want to go to yoga, and yet you stay in bed to sleep in and go to brunch. You're presented with a challenging pose in your yoga practice and rather than try, your story line of "I can't do this, I'm not strong enough, or I don't want to" comes up and you go to the bathroom, or rather than keep trying you indulge in self sabotaging and discouraging thoughts- getting down on yourself and practicing in a way that is aggressive guilt-ridding and hurtful to yourself. 


In each of these moments a choice between opening and closing is being given to us. With skillful and compassionate awareness we can begin to train ourselves to catch these moments of opening and closing and interrupt the cycle of habitual response. The bad news is that many of us have been reinforcing our habitual response of closing for years. The good news is that in every situation we have a choice and we can begin to make new choices and therefore water the right seeds so that when the big challenges come our way we are ready to respond from a more courageous and open place that is fresh and free from habitual response.


This training requires Tapas. Without commitment to keep returning to our practice, returning to our breath we will inevitably return to our habitual response and stories that keep us hooked and stuck in behaviors and patterns that do not serve us and which contribute to our suffering. That being said, not doing the habitual thing can be unnerving, uncomfortable, and down right hard. We discover that we have found a sort of safety in staying stuck in our stories, even if they hold us back.


In her book Taking The Leap, Pema Chodron writes that when we catch ourselves biting the hook and entering into habitual response that there is something we can do to get unstuck. Step one is to acknowledge your hooked. Simply notice and be with the feeling. That is power in and of itself, to have awareness that we're riding the wave of an energy/thought that's going to take us into a habitual response. Step two is to pause and take three deep conscious breaths and lean in. Lean in to the energy and abide with it. Experience it as fully as you can through the vehicle of all your senses--get to know the energy intimately. She likens this to getting to know the itch and urge to move into habit (scratch) and just breathe into it without acting it out--not letting yourself get seduced or entranced by it. You have open and compassionate awareness. Step three, you relax and you move on. You do this over and over again every time you feel yourself getting pulled into a frenzy. Rather than feed your irritation, anger, rage, bitterness, etc.. Begin these steps and see if you can create some space. The more you do this with small things--like traffic, or poses you don't like--the more you can do it with the large things--like turning your life around after a lifetime of habitual response!

In Arthur's case he had watered his seeds a long time, and one day he decided to interrupt his story of I can't, I won't, it's impossible. Look what happened. Do you have an issue that feels like you're stuck in a habit? Your practice can help you to wake up, or it can reinforce habits to keep you asleep. Yoga and meditation done without consciousness is the same as anything else done the same way. Every breath and movement is an opportunity to open or close. What seeds are you watering when challenges arise in your practice? Notice this as

you engage in your practice this week and see if you can cultivate the resiliency needed to remain open in your practice. Remain open, no matter what arises whether a challenge, struggle, or ease and say yes to life no matter what! Honor your struggles, as without them you would never know how rich, deep and alive your life can really be.


Blessings to you!

When is enough, enough?

I recently read an article about a trend in which "hot" classes are getting hotter, based on the demand of the students. One studio's classes, which were at 105, are turning their classes up to 110 so that their students can get what they consider a "harder workout".

Without judging this trend good or bad, it got me thinking about a few things. In my own teaching experience, both with classes I have taught and also studios and gyms I have taught at, I have heard on more than one occasion from students and studio owners alike about a desire for "harder" classes and for more "difficult" poses to be taught. This can range from students making comments that they don't feel challenged enough physically, to them not feeling a "stretch" in poses any longer- The "I feel nothing" response.

Again, I don't want to judge this good or bad, but I do want to dissect it and examine to see what this has to teach me/us.

I for one can appreciate that the practice of yoga has so much to offer us and can align with us across the spectrum of multiple intentions. I feel hot practices have their place, as do I think working up to more challenging poses has a place for many folks too.

To me the practices in and of themselves are not what I question. I question and want to look more deeply at the intention, or rather the desire behind our actions.

I remember a while back I listened to a Tibetan Llama who was giving a talk on death and dying. During the course of his talk he mentioned this concept of "retreat", or rather "re-treat". He commented on how our tendency as human beings is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. When we find something we like, say for example, chocolate chip cookies, we like to "re-treat" ourselves to the experience. One cookie is rarely enough, we want more. Same can be true of anything.

I have found within my own life a constant drive to improve my experience. Again, not judging this quality, as the drive within us that seeks to improve things has a place within the flow of life. However, this part of me, and that I have noticed within others, has a hard time being with things as they are or simply appreciating things as they are. For example, say I have an amazing meal at my favorite restaurant, and afterwards I say, "you know what would have made that even better". It's like there is a hole that can never be filled within us that constantly demands our attention.

This hole, that appears to be bottomless, spans across all areas of our lives, from money, career, relationships, etc. It's the aspect of self that declares "if I just had $1000 more a month, I would be all set", or "If I get this job, then everything is going to be ok".

One of the ethical guidelines for yoga, is contentment. My take on it is that it is the practice of being with the "what is" of our lives and loving what is. It's also the practice of being with what we have and opening up to what we have as enough. The idea that nothing external can ground us, or make us be/feel anything better. All that we are springs forth from the inside. Our essence is our oneness with life and nothing outside of us can change that. And our time, whether on the mat, or within the container of other mindfulness practices, is to connect us to that internal world that grounds us and reminds us of that oneness and of our interdependence with all things. And in that place, and remembrance, we are whole already.

Which brings me back to the original thoughts. While I don't want to judge the aspects of practice that have us moving towards advanced asanas, or even "harder" "faster" experiences in class. I guess I ask us all to question the intention, our intention behind doing so. Is it in service of connecting you to the place within that is your source of groundedness--which it totally can be, or is it in service of the part of you that wants to be "re-treated".

It's worth exploring. Happy questioning to you!

Into The Center

I spent a good portion of my life not even being willing to look at my stomach in a mirror. In fact, I think I spent a whole two years avoiding looking at my body naked from the face down. I'm not alone. I know many people, men and women alike who have body image issues that prevent them from being in their bodies with joy, acceptance, and loving kindness. Culturally there are so many messages that tell us our bodies have to look a certain way and exercise programs, including yoga, that reinforce the idea that our bellies need to be flat or "rock hard" to be "healthy" or "sexy". What this messaging did to me though was quite the opposite. Rather than inspire health it actually disconnected me from my center and led me down a path of making choices for my life and health based on fear, rather than on deep listening to what the needs of my body truly were.

I find it interesting that intuitively I've always been drawn to a physical practice that was geared towards core strength. As I get older, I find myself bringing more attention and depth to this work. For me "core" work is more than focusing on my abs. On a physical level it's bringing awareness to all the "cores" or centers of energy in the body and all the access points of centering depth and power. I find that the more I connect to these centering energies the more alive and present I am capable of being, as well as embodied. For me, being in my body and truly inhabiting my body is a sacred task and all the check points that I bring to my practice are tools for being here now with depth and awareness. Each action I take that guides me to my center is a promise, a commitment that I make to myself to keep showing up, to stay with this moment and to accept in love and courage whatever arises.

I am going to share the access points I am using in practice, which I believe will support any one in deepening their own journey inward to their center, I also want to share two important points about this journey. The first one is that of precision. Each of these steps, or check points are opportunities to show up with integrity in our practice. Engaging with awareness expresses our willingness to be transformed by the practice and it also allows us to open to the magic of practice. The second is that we also need gentleness. We have to assess moment by moment how much to bring into each of these access points. It's easy to over do any of them. It's also easy to get down on ourselves, causing even more disconnection, by thinking/feeling that we're terrible yogis because we can't do one, or even any of the check points.

So strike a balance between gentleness and precision. Show up fully, but also show up with kindness.

The following are the check points that I encourage to try to begin your journey to the center:

1. In standing poses, and even in poses like Down Dog, lift and spread your toes, and then keep them lifted. You won't be able to do it for long if you're just trying this for the first time. However, it's a foundational check point and it's one to begin with. If you do nothing else, this one will support you in all sorts of wonderful ways. First, it fires up your outer shin muscles, bringing more support into your legs, and those with knee issues, it will bring more support to keep your knees stable. Second, the stability this action brings in, supports the body with balance too as it activates the foot muscles. It also keep the toes nice and healthy for those that wear tight shoes during the day. Mostly it helps to bring awareness to the center of the foot grounding you more fully and attentively in your poses.

2. Building on the previous energy, bring a block between your thighs, close to your groins and hug the block between your thighs. Squeeze it enough to feel your inner thighs engage, but not so much that you burst your block open! Feel connected to the energy this action brings to your inner thighs--this is hugging your legs to the midline.

3. Root tailbone (can also be said as lengthen, or in some cases curl). Do this in your standing poses, but also most importantly in your backbends. You know you are doing this when you feel your belly rise up and in and also the kidney region of the back lifts up to support the low back. Make sure you press your thighs back first, before deeper curling of the tailbone.

4. Draw support from your Back body. In standing poses this is more easily available. In a pose like warrior one, once the foundation of your legs is stable, Bow into your heart, rounding the upper back and feel your kidney region of your back engage and slide up the back. From this place of depth, expand out. This will in turn support you in lengthening up and away from the waist, and expand the muscles of the rib cage.

5. Hands. In poses like Down Dog and also Chaturanga you want the hands to be like suction cups against the earth. To do this place weight into the fullness of your palms. Spread the fingers out so much that the webbing stretches out. Also curl fingers tips into the earth like a tiger getting ready to pounce. Keep that buoyancy alive as long as you can.

6. Hugs hands and arms to midline. Also from Down Dog and Plank, squeeze hands and inner arms to the midline of your body to awaken the core lines in the arms and to help keep index finger and thumb grounded. In down dog this helps to keep the shoulders buoyant. In Chaturanga it helps to keep your shoulders from dipping forward and also helps to keep your elbows hugged in.

There are other access points, but these should keep you busy for a while!

Enjoy your journey to your center and may you find it with gentleness and compassion and live courageously from it!